


A Tale of Two Defectors

by wbh



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Supernatural
Genre: Alien Castiel, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anxiety, Crossover, Friendship, Gen, apparently my thing is making characters I love meet and interact with each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 06:34:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9422651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wbh/pseuds/wbh
Summary: Bodhi hides from a Star Destroyer in a nebula. Things do not go as planned.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in a universe where all of Rogue One made if off Scarif (the how is not important). A continuation in my exercise of imagining how my faves would meet.

Bodhi gasped in relief as his shuttle finally came to a halt. It started drifting as he cut the engine, floating gently in space. He forced his white-knuckled hands off of the flight controls, and set about powering down the ship around him, only leaving emergency life support on. With any luck, Imperial sensors wouldn’t detect him. It was only then, certain he’d done all he could to hide, that he allowed himself to look out the front viewscreen.

The nebula was beautiful, Bodhi had to concede that. Swirling blue and luminous white, pushing in on his shuttle the longer it drifted without power. And full of a helpful chemical makeup that had a good chance of hiding him from the Star Destroyer that had suddenly emerged from hyperspace on the far side of Corellia, where he was supposed to pick up Jyn and Cassian after they completed their undercover mission.

Bodhi had been looking at at least twelve more hours in orbit waiting for their signal anyway, so hiding himself instead in the nearby nebula, hoping the Destroyer would be gone by the time he needed to make the rendezvous, seemed like a smart move. He hoped. He’d been left alone in the shuttle, and now, along with the still simmering panic the sight of the Destroyer had ignited in him, Bodhi was beginning to feel a creeping guilt and shame over running away.

It had been the smart thing to do. It _had_. And no snide remarks from fanatical rebel pilots about the Defector’s cowardice were going to change that. He just needed to wait it out, undetected, before he could pick up the spies. The mission was what mattered, and Bodhi being blown out of the sky would mean disaster for his team on the ground.

He leaned back in the jumpseat, running his hands down his face. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his still racing heart. He was going to be ok. He was _safe_ . And it was likely the Destroyer was just making some kind of routine stop, and would be gone by the time he needed to come out of hiding. Everything would be _fine_.

Unfortunately, repeating logic like that had never seemed to work on his anxiety, no matter that Cassian stubbornly seemed to think it would eventually. Bodhi just had a very hard time shifting from “I’m going to die” mode to anything else, but, he thought, at least he was used to working that way. _Be scared, but do it anyway_ , he thought to himself, his mantra for moments like this. It was how he’d worked up the courage to defect, and luckily wasn’t something Bor Gullet had scrambled out of his brain.

Bodhi looked out at the nebula again, now seeming to press in closely on the cockpit as the shuttle hung, almost motionless, in space. He swallowed. Now all he had to do was wait.

* * *

Waiting patiently was far more difficult than it sounded. Particularly because, about half an hour after he’d stalled, Bodhi was becoming convinced the nebula was trying to get into his ship.

 _Leaking_ , _leaking in_ , he reminded himself forcefully, the nebula couldn’t _want_ anything. It was just a cloud of blue and white light. He thought of the chemical composition that the ship’s scanners had shown him before he flew in. Just an ordinary nebula. It absolutely was _not_ pressing in more and more firmly around his shuttle, making him claustrophobic and drowning out his viewscreen in far more saturated, radiant blue. He must be imagining it.

Bodhi went down into the hold to check the seal on the cargo doors for the fourth time.

When he was climbing back up the ladder to the cockpit, the ship shuddered and pitched beneath him, nearly making him lose his grip on the rungs. He steadied himself and then rushed to the front of the ship, crashing to a halt against the back of the jumpseat and grabbing onto it to steady himself even as his hands started shaking over what he was seeing.

The nebula was gone. No more swirling blue and white light outside the ship, only endless black and the bright pinpoints of faraway stars. And the Star Destroyer, still sitting serenely in orbit over Corellia, a mere half a light year away.

His panic, thankfully, propelled him into action, and Bodhi leap to the controls to restore the power, throwing the shields up first and then frantically examining his scanners to see what the Star Destroyer was doing, as it had certainly spotted him. But to his confusion and surprise it was doing...nothing. Nothing more than orbiting the planet, anyway. No scanning sweeps of his shuttle, no sign of deployed TIEs or Interceptors, no sign it was powering weapons to blow him out of the system. Just...nothing.

Bodhi’s hands hovered over the controls as he stood hunched over his consol, an odd and uncomfortable mix of terrified and puzzled. He was jolted out of his inaction by a sound behind him, like the shuttle was groaning in protest, or about to split apart. It was _not_ a good sound.

He turned slowly, certain he wasn’t going to like what he saw and nearly stopped breathing when he was proved very, very right. The nebula. It was _inside_ his ship. The whole corridor behind him, going out the cockpit door, was filled with a swirling blue and white light. He’d probably only just missed being vaporized by it as he’d rushing away from the cargo hold.

Bodhi knew he needed to shut and lock the cockpit door immediately in a last-ditch effort to save himself, but found he couldn’t move. Fear and vindication pinned him in place, as he thought wildly _I wasn’t imagining it! The nebula did want to get in - and it succeeded!_ Maybe it had come in through the exhaust ports? Or maybe he’d missed something when checking the seal on the cargo hold? However it had happened, one thing was certain: he was doomed.

Bodhi stood frozen, and it took a few panicked breaths for him to realize that the nebula wasn’t advancing into the cockpit. Which was...odd to say the least. Not that anything about this nebula had proven to be _normal_ , but the laws of physics dictated the gas should have filled the available space by now. Instead, it felt like he was in a stand-off with a swirling blue cloud, which was fast turning into the most surreal experience of his life. 

When the nebula finally began to move again, it didn’t rush forward as Bodhi feared, but instead seemed to press in on itself, swirling tighter and tighter into a compact form, until Bodhi could see the corridor behind it (miraculously, nothing looked damaged). It was starting to take a familiar shape when a bright flash of light forced Bodhi to close his eyes. When he opened them again, the nebula was gone. 

In its place stood an unassuming man in a long tan coat. He was taller than Bodhi, with pale skin and unruly brown hair. Bodhi stared. The man in the coat tilted his head, and stared back.

“Hello,” he said, in a deep voice, as if it was perfectly normal that just moments before he’d been a nebula.

“Uh...hi,” Bodhi replied, forcing the words out through a renewed sense of panic. Best not to antagonize what was clearly an alien being that he’d mistaken for a nebula and _flown into_.

“Um sorry about the,” Bodhi continued, faltering briefly at the nebula-creature’s unblinking gaze, but pressing on with his apology, “sorry about the, uh, the flying into you thing, I thought you were a nebula, and, I’m sure you’re angry,” the man gave no indication if Bodhi was right about that, and Bodhi swallowed as he backed away from the nebula-man toward the controls at the front of the cockpit, “but I really need to get out of here, that Destroyer -”

“The ship? It can’t see you. I’ve made sure of that,” the man said, matter-of-factly, and for some strange reason, Bodhi believed him. But while that solved one problem, the nebula was still in the room. 

“My name is Castiel,” the nebula went on, almost as if he and Bodhi were meeting in a cantina over drinks. Like there was nothing at all odd about this situation.

“Bodhi, Bodhi Rook,” he replied, not quite sure how else to respond. “I really am sorry -” 

“I suppose I should have known you didn’t _want_ to talk to me,” Castiel interrupted, looking almost glum. “Ships fly through all the time, but you’re the first one who’s stopped in ages. I can leave, if you want.”

Bodhi was forced to do a rapid reassessment of the situation. If Castiel really _was_ shielding him from the Star Destroyer, the last thing he wanted was for the alien to leave.

“Oh, no, uh, you don’t have to go,” Bodhi said, and he would have been amused at the way Castiel perked up at that, if he hadn’t still been shaking. He turned the jumpseat around and sat down. “I mean, uh, I was just trying to hide here until the Destroyer left, and as long as I can keep hiding, we can, um, talk, if you want.”

Castiel seemed to assess that offer for a moment. Then he nodded, and strode forward into the cockpit, sitting down stiffly in the copilot’s seat, facing Bodhi. “I accept your terms,” he said gravely. “Please accept my apologies. It’s been a very long time since I’ve spoken to a human. I did not intend to frighten you.”

Bodhi was almost startled by the laugh that burst from him at that, but he was starting to relax. This Castiel was obviously immensely powerful, and if he’d wanted to hurt Bodhi he would have done it already. But he didn’t seem angry just...lonely.

“No, uh, no worries,” Bodhi replied, still struggling to wrap his mind around the sheer _strangeness_ of the situation. “You’ve talked to people before? I mean...you’re not always a nebula?”

“I’m never a nebula,” Castiel said with a slight smile. “I’m always a seraph. We’re meant to travel in a Host, great numbers of us moving through galaxies together but…” he trailed off, looking suddenly sad. “I left my host to...interfere in the affairs of corporeals many years ago. I don’t know where they are, and I doubt they’d welcome me back.”

Bodhi’s head was spinning. “And I’m...a corporeal?”

“Oh yes,” said Castiel, sounding amused again. He leaned forward and tapped Bodhi’s hand a few times. “Very.”

“Well, um,” Bodhi said, struggling to keep up with Castiel’s strange revelations, “thanks, I guess, for...interfering. Hiding me.”

Castiel ducked his head. “I was watching you, even before you flew your ship into me. You...you reminded me of someone.” Bodhi was sure that hadn’t been what he’d intended to say. “Why are you hiding? Who is on the other ship? I do not like the energy coming from it,” he concluded, eyes narrowing as he looked out at the Star Destroyer.

“They’re Imperials,” Bodhi supplied, uncertain of just how much detail a nebula-alien would even want about his current plight. “They’d probably hurt or destroy me if they found me, so...do you really want to know about this? Corporeal problems?” 

Castiel smiled softly at him. “My Host always said I was too curious. A flaw I haven’t been able to improve over my long life, I’m afraid.” Castiel looked at Bodhi expectantly.

So Bodhi told him. Everything. About the Empire, how he was pressed into service, learning about the Death Star, defecting, everything that had come after. He doubted he’d ever see Castiel again (he was a giant cloud of gas in space, it was safe to tell him), so it all came tumbling out. And through it all, Castiel listened politely, hands clasped in front of him and hanging on Bodhi’s every word. 

“...and so now I’m running covert shuttle missions for the Rebel Alliance, still...still trying to get right with myself.” Bodhi finished, rather anti-climatically, he thought. 

But Castiel just nodded, looking at Bodhi with...respect? “It can be hard, to turn away from what you’ve known, to do the right thing.” He said slowly. The way he said it made Bodhi think he was speaking from experience, not in the abstract. “And it takes a toll. Time took so much from me. It’s been so long. I lost them all, the corporeals I left the Host for, to _time_ in the end, not violence. Drifting out here ever since felt...peaceful, I suppose. But…” he turned a critical eye on Bodhi at that. “Perhaps it’s time to interfere again.” 

“Uh…” Bodhi hoped that wasn’t as ominous as it sounded. “What do you…” He trailed off, as Castiel had already stopped paying attention, and had turned the copilot’s seat forward to stare out the viewport, intense gaze locked on the Star Destroyer over Corellia. 

“We should probably collect your friends,” he said firmly, as if he and Bodhi had had a long conversation about what to do next, and everything was decided. “I’ll make sure that ship - the Destroyer? - doesn’t detect us.” 

“Um, yeah, alright,” said Bodhi, too flustered to argue. Apparently he’d just accidentally gained a very powerful ally. As Bodhi fired up the sublight engines, he tried not to think of how he was ever going to explain this to Cassian.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The timing of what I've implied here doesn't quite work, as Star Wars takes place "a long time ago," but let's just roll with it.


End file.
